


Maybe More

by QuickLikeLight



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Closeted Character, Coming Out, F/F, Female Character of Color, Fluff, Happy Ending, Mild Angst, Original Female Character - Freeform, References to Lesbophobia, References to racism, Secret Relationship, Winter Screw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 23:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4805927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickLikeLight/pseuds/QuickLikeLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Camilla Regina Collins, I am really sick and tired of being your friend.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe More

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo I've read a lot of Check, Please! fic where Jack Zimmermann's Winter Screw date, Camilla Collins, has a girlfriend that she couldn't attend with. This is fic about Camilla and that girlfriend, who - for the sake of this fic - I have named Maggie. Since we have no canonical description of her, Camilla Collins is black in this fic (my personal facecast for her is Rutina Wesley with about six extra inches of height, but that doesn't really affect the fic in any way). There are some references to fear of coming out of the closet, but mostly this is light, fluffy character study and silly girls being there for one another.
> 
> Also, normally I headcanon Jack as bisexual (because hahahaha normally I headcanon almost everyone as bisexual) but for the sake of this fic, he isn't interested in women at all.

Camilla heaved the door of her dorm room open, wincing at the way the door dragged against the floor, loud scrapes echoing down the hall. It wasn’t that late - it never was, after these things, but Maggie might be sleeping or studying or -

“Cam?”

Well. Not sleeping, anyway.

“Waiting up for me?” Camilla hiked her long green formal up further, clearing the path for her bare feet. She held her heels - too high and a half size too big and altogether too glitter - in one hand, her tiny, useless clutch in the other, and her phone between her teeth, which muffled her words some. It didn’t seem to matter.

“Get changed and come sit. I have sin cookies that I squirreled away just for you.”

Maggie sat cross-legged on their bed, two twins pushed together to form a platform that took up most of their small room. In front of her, a package of delicious chocolate caramel coconut goodness sat completely unopened, just waiting to be devoured.

“Where did you even get them this time of year?” Camilla laughed, dropping her things in the middle of the floor and tugging at her zipper. It was mostly fruitless, the struggle of trying to get the sticky side zip down making her want out of the dress all the more, until she was practically fighting with the tight top, trying to pull it over her head without unzipping it.

“I saved the - Wait, wait, stop!” Maggie’s hands covered her own, stilling them. They were cold and pale, callused from the weight room and dry from the tape she used to wrap her hands during practice. Camilla caught both of Maggie’s in her grip to chafe some warmth back in them. _She’s probably gone out for a cigarette without a jacket again, in December. Going to catch her death._ “You’ll rip it and it’ll be ruined and you’ll be very sad when it comes time for next year’s Screw, because this was the only dress you found that you even sort of liked.”

“I’m not _going_ to next year’s Screw,” she said, sulky. She let her head rest against the wall as Maggie unzipped her, working quickly against the stiff zipper and the layers of floofy chiffon. She was going to flatten her hair on that side, but it didn’t matter, really.

“Did you not have a good time with Jack? I thought you’d get along…”

“Where did you even meet him?” Camilla asked, peeling herself out of the bodice and letting it drop to the floor in a heap. “He’s like… I don’t know…”

“The most socially awkward robot boy you’ve ever met?” Maggie prompted, smiling. She wrapped her arms around Camilla’s neck, pulling her in for a hug. It was a relief to be back home in Maggie’s arms instead of at the dance, all eyes on her with hockey royalty stumbling at her side. “He’s better in class. Not quite as… stiff.”

“Jack Zimmermann couldn’t thaw out in the Sahara desert,” Camilla grumped.

“I dunno. He’s kind of… sweet? In a hopeless sort of way, once you get to know him. I think…”

“What?” Camilla prompted, butting her nose against Maggie’s forehead.

“I don’t know. I think things have been pretty tough for him, that’s all.”

“Probably because he has an entire tree stuck up his ass,” Camilla said, but at Maggie’s dark look she continued, “But I guess he isn’t terrible. He walked me home. Invited us both to come have coffee with him sometime.”

“See? Not so bad.”

Maggie unhooked the strapless bra that had been paining her all night, digging deep into her ribs.

“This doesn’t fit,” she tutted, rubbing a soft hand over the angry indent across Camilla’s chest. Camilla’s breasts hung free, small enough she thought she could have gotten away without wearing the bra at all, but she always felt strange without a few layers on outside the sanctity of their little room, like she was just asking for someone to step on her dress and land her naked body on the front page of _The Swallow_. She could picture the headline in all of its oblivious glory - _Volleyball Star Bares All at Screw: Simple Samwell Athlete or Chocolate Covered Goddess? You Decide!_

She shuddered.

“Yeah, I realized that about ten minutes after I put it on. Not much I could do.” Camilla shrugged. She put on a tank top from the top drawer and stepped out of the pile of fancy dress clothes. She should pick it all up, hang up the dress, box up the heels, but -

She’d spent all evening having her feet stepped on by hockey players who talked too much or too little while wearing a too small bra and too big shoes and knowing Maggie was here, alone, _studying_ , and all of that was excuse enough to do it tomorrow.

“I still don’t know why we couldn’t just…” she started, but Maggie shrugged her off.

“You know why, babe.”

It rankled. She _did_ know why - Margaret Archer, heiress to the Archer Industries fortune and daughter of Maxwell Archer the Third, was straight as they came and basically betrothed to some financial planner up in Boston. That didn’t mean she had to like it.

“We could have gone as friends,” Camilla argued, pulling herself up onto the bed and snuggling in with Maggie’s pillow and the box of Girl Scout cookies. She didn’t even want to eat them, stomach still full from one too many glasses of punch at the party, but knowing Maggie had saved them for her all year made her feel warm and soft down to her bones.

“That would have felt like even more of a lie than not going at all did,” Maggie sighed. She climbed into the bed too, body mirroring Camilla’s own until they were like a closed set of parentheses, faces close and toes touching but with so much space in between. The quiet grew until it was like a blanket surrounding them both, dampening the sounds of other students straggling in from the dance out in the hallway, their heels clicking on floor tiles.

“I don’t want to be your friend,” Camilla said, the soft truth slipping out in the half dark of their room, illuminated by the fairy lights Maggie had strung up herself in the shape of a heart on the wall. It was an old promise, one of the oldest they’d made to one another, but it felt like it needed saying again.

“I don’t want to be your friend, either,” Maggie smiled, even if it was a little sad. She pushed forward just a bit, pressing a sweet kiss to Camilla’s mouth. It wasn’t thrilling or exciting; after almost a year of being together - being like this - most of the heart-racing, pulse-jumping moments had eased down into the soft spark of sweetness and comfort and home, better than anything she’d ever felt before. When Maggie spoke again, her words were muffled against Camilla’s mouth. “I’ll take you to Screw next year. I promise. I will. You won’t -”

“Shhhh, stop, stop.” Camilla rolled over, taking Maggie with her until she was settled over Maggie’s body in the sea of blankets they shared, watching as her dark hair spilled out of its messy bun all over the pillow. She peppered Maggie’s face with kisses, and between each, “I don’t care,” and “It’s okay,” and “I don’t mind.”

“It’s not fair, though,” Maggie argued, familiar and painful for it all the same. “You should get to be - you should get to be out, you’ve worked for it, it’s not fair that you have to hide because of me.”

“It’s not fair to you either, is it?” Camilla asked, placing a kiss on the tip of her pert, upturned nose. “Is it fair that you have to hide when it would make you so much happier to be out? Is it fair that you came to Samwell, of all places, ‘One in Four -’”

“- Maybe more,” Maggie laughed softly.

“Exactly,” Camilla agreed. “You came here to get away from all that, the pressure to play a part, to be a specific kind of person for your dad or your uncles or your racist grandma -”

“Ugh, she’s awful,” Maggie covered her eyes with one hand, but Camilla kissed it anyway. “She’s so, so awful, _god_ , Cam -”

“You’re right, she’s terrible, and frankly, they sort of all are, but they gave me _you_. So I don’t mind. As long as I have you, I don’t care if we have to be ‘roommates’ forever. I just - I want you to be safe. Happy.”

“I am happy,” Maggie said immediately, surging up to kiss Camilla’s mouth, hard and sure. The kiss took her by surprise, filled her with butterflies - like going down a roller coaster or around a hairpin turn on the back of her dad’s motorcycle - and she melted down into Maggie’s body, letting her muscles relax until they were pressed together in one long line. Maggie grunted under her weight, but Camilla squirmed harder. “I’m happy with you.”

“I’m happy with you too,” Camilla whispered, rubbing her cheek against Maggie’s once and then laughing as she noticed her make-up smear across Maggie’s face, a shimmering brown line over her freckled cheekbone.

“I’ll be happier, though,” Maggie said, wiping at her own face haphazardly, “if next year I get to dance with you at Winter Screw.”

“Well,” Camilla shrugged, trying not to let her hopes take over her entire face and failing miserably. “Let’s hope Jack Zimmermann finds himself a girlfriend before then.”

“I’m thinking boyfriend is probably more likely,” Maggie mused, pulling her down for another kiss. Camilla stopped mere inches away, face incredulous.

“You really expect me to believe Mr. Robato is _gay_?”

“Did he try to touch your butt?” Maggie waggled her eyebrows ridiculously.

Camilla huffed, trying not to laugh. “Of course not.”

“Definitely gay then,” Maggie leered, giggling. Her hands slipped down to settle comfortably on Camilla’s ass, giving it a playful squeeze that brought the blood rushing to her skin. “Nobody who likes girls could have kept their hands off _this_ all evening.”

“You’re terrible,” Camilla despaired, rolling over until she was on her back, head on Maggie’s pillow once more. Maggie spooned into her immediately, head resting on her chest and arm curving around her waist.

“You love me, though,” she said, assurance oozing from every word. Camilla yawned, switching off the fairy lights and plunging them into the comfort of darkness. She tangled the fingers of one hand in Maggie’s hair and dropped a kiss on her forehead to say goodnight.

“Of course I do.”

 

_One Year Later_

“Maggie - what - what are you -?”

Camilla stood, dumbfounded, on the steps with a gaping Jack Zimmermann on her arm and Margaret Elizabeth Archer holding a giant bouquet of violets out with both hands. Maggie’s eyes were a little red, like she’d been crying, but her make-up was all carefully applied and her dress looked like something straight off of some red carpet. The little details faded against the brilliant smile that split her face, though; even the way her hands shook slightly, making the flowers dance in the sharp December air.

“Camilla Regina Collins, I am really sick and tired of being your friend.”

One of the hockey players, a small, blonde kid in a bowtie and suspenders who looked about twelve, gasped at the declaration, but Camilla heard it for what it was.

“You didn’t -” It was like her mouth wouldn’t say the words she wanted to say, her feet rooted to the stone steps.

“I did. I - I told him. The engagement’s off. Pretty sure my inheritance is off. Not a hundred percent positive my tuition isn’t off, but I - I’ll deal with it. It’s fine. It’s all going to be okay now, I just -”

All at once, Camilla could move again, so she did. She wrapped her arms around Maggie as tightly as she could, squeezing a little squeak out of her darling, her lover, her _girlfriend,_ in front of everyone.

“Oh my god, I can’t - I’m so -”

“I know,” Maggie laughed, tears building up in her eyes but not spilling over. Camilla’s face hurt from smiling, but she couldn’t stop, didn’t _want_ to stop.

“I love you,” she said, loud and proud, without a care for who was around.

“I love you, too.” Maggie kissed her, fast and warm and _public_ , and it thrilled her to her bones. “I love you. I love you. _I love you_.”

An awkward cough sounded from behind them, and Camilla turned to see Jack holding out a corsage, apologetic look on his face.

“I think maybe one of you should wear this?” he said quietly, offering to pin it to Maggie’s dress. “Your pictures this year will be much prettier, eh Camilla?”

“Oh, Jack…” she started, suddenly saddened at the thought of leaving him alone at the party, even if it meant she got to spend it with Maggie. The past year had been good to Jack - they’d gotten to be friends, even. She’d sort of been looking forward to listening to him make soft, snide remarks about the lacrosse team and stumble over his words when she flirted with him.

“Don’t worry,” he said, cutting her off before she could offer to keep him company. “I… ah…”

He looked away, eyes tracking a short blonde head through the crowd. The hockey player, barely larger than Maggie and a full four inches shorter than Camilla herself, waved cheerily from the top step. There was no accompanying date in sight.

“I’m in good company this evening,” Jack finished, never taking his eyes from off the boy in the red bowtie.

 _Nobody who likes girls could have kept their hands off_ this _all evening,_ Maggie’s voice echoed in her head.

“Good luck, Jack.” Camilla felt every word of it, twining her fingers with Maggie’s - still too cold against her own. “I hope…”

She trailed off, not wanting to say the wrong thing, but Jack seemed to get it anyway.

“Me too.” He kissed her cheek, and then Maggie’s, and gave them both an awkward little salute. “I should probably…”

“Yeah, go.” Camilla waved him off. “We’ll see you on the ice.”

They waited for him to go before Maggie pulled her in for another kiss, warm and vanilla-tasting, like the coffee Maggie preferred and the lipbalm they shared.

“You hate hockey,” Maggie laughed against her skin. Camilla shrugged.

“Tonight I could love anything.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Your feedback is valuable to all fic writers, and I'm no exception. If you enjoyed this story, please let me know.
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](http://quicklikelight.tumblr.com).


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